Alvarado, on his
part, was CEO of Electricidad de Caracas, and shared with Ramirez
important board positions at newly formed CORPOELEC. Alvarado's son,
also called Javier, is a school friend of Pedro Trebbau, one of
Derwick's top executives. In fact, when Alvarado Jr was importing an
old Porsche he bought from a convicted oil trader, he gave
Derwick's office address in Caracas as contact.

FINCEN's report mentioned PDVSA as source of syphoned billions. Derwick
Associates got all its 12 contracts either directly from CORPOELEC
(through Alvarado and Villalobos), or from its partner PDVSA / Bariven (through
Villalobos and Ramirez).

How can this be? How
could Derwick's proposals be prepared and authored by ProEnergy staff? Not only the ones for Venezuela, but also a bid in Suriname. Is
it not evident that using proposals interchangeably does away with
differentiation of bids / companies? ProEnergy paid bribes for the obtention of
Termozulia contract, as revealed by Venezuelan journalists. Crucially, Termozulia contract and the bribes paid to obtain it, took place after Derwick and ProEnergy started working together. Given how
ProEnergy and Derwick conducted its businesses with CORPOELEC and
PDVSA / Bariven, does anyone buy Derwick's line that contracts
obtained did not involve payment of bribes to Villalobos, Alvarado
and others?

As per El Mundo and
local Venezuelan sources reports, the workflow in obtention of power
contracts looks like this:

However Derwick
wants us to believe that no bribe made part of their workflow. Every
single multinational and local company making business of moderate
size in Venezuela pays bribes. To be fair, that's just the way it works. If no bribe is paid no
contract is granted. But the peculiar thing about Derwick in
particular, is their refusal to admit publicly that solely through corruption
and nepotism can their success be explained.

Derwick's time's up.
Its execs are currently being probed by Manhattan DA's Office, several U.S. Federal Agencies and now the corrupt thugs that contracted them are also investigated by FINCEN and Spain's Anti Money
Laundering authorities. This will, almost certainly, lead to further
investigations by other Spanish and / or European law enforcement
agencies. For instance, El Mundo reports that Villalobos wired money to bank accounts in Miami. Is RBC, as quoted in SEPBLAC's report, the Royal Bank of Canada? Also consider that Villalobos is an intermediary, a bagman for a big chavista beast, otherwise known as Rafael Ramirez. Villalobos didn't just pocket the $50 million, simply because having no official job at the time he couldn't possibly have awarded a contract. That's the remit of someone with true discretionary power, someone high enough in the chavista food chain, a Ramirez, a Cabello...

Notice mention of Majzoub brothers and Ricardo Fernandez, all three proxies of Diosdado Cabello.

Derwick execs
favourite argument is that I have been paid to write about them, that
my work to expose chavista corruption, which started when some of
them were teenagers, is some sort of vendetta, and that silencing me
-through break in, theft, stalking, online defamation, spurious legal accusations and threats against my children- will bring to an end
their problems with the justice. I guess in their soireés in newly
acquired, multimillion dollar houses overlooking the greens of
Caracas Country Club, among all those idiotic yesmen, chavistas and
pneumatic women, they must think that I have enlisted Barack Obama, Manhattan DA's
Office, FINCEN, SEC, FBI, Treasury, IRS, DEA, Homeland Security, the
WSJ, El Mundo, and SEPBLAC for my "campaign". Like their chavista patrons like to say: “It's all an Imperial Conspiracy!”

As I said a while back, Derwick brought all of this to themselves, and they have only themselves to blame for what's coming their way. I have been told that sancochos in El Furrial are hopelessly boring...

16.3.15

One of Spain's newspapers of record, El Mundo, published in its front page today about corrupt officials from Venezuela using the subsidiary of a little bank in Andorra to launder billions of dollars. The news may come as a surprise to some. Readers of this and other blogs of mine will, I hope, share a feeling of vindication with me today, for as extraordinary as El Mundo's decision to name names is, we have known this for a while. In fact, I alerted Spain's money laundering authorities (SEPBLAC) about it in April 2012.

Derwick Associates has been described by El Mundo as an American company that has benefited from public contracts given by Alvarado and Villalobos, now under investigation. Derwick is not an American co, we know that, but Alvarado and Villalobos are key to this multibillion dollar swindle.

Luis Jose Diaz Zuloaga, stepfather of one of Derwick's principals (Francisco Convit), was CEO of Electricidad de Valencia (one of the private cos forcefully absorbed by CORPOELEC). Javier Alvarado, in turn, is the father of a close school chum of Pedro Trebbau (Alvarado Jr on the left, with light blue, Trebbau in the center, dark blue and glasses).

Through Diaz Zuloaga, Villalobos, Alvarado and Ramirez, the Derwick bolichicos managed to get over 1.3 billion USD worth of contracts, according to ProEnergy Services sources familiar with the deals. In addition, Derwick overcharged the Venezuelan State 35%, on average, on each contract, according to leaked documents and ProEnergy Services sources familiar with the contracts.

10.3.15

Thank you for having the courage to sanction a bunch of thugs, when all other democratic nations turn their backs on us.

Thank you for showing that Liberals do not tolerate human rights violators, regardless of where they stand in the political spectrum.

Thank you for shining a light of hope upon our battered nation.

Not long ago, I was in a conference about the offshore financial services industry. I remember, in particular, a conversation with the organizer, who claimed that the only country in the world that does something with regards to money launderers is the U.S.

We have seen how U.S. authorities have slapped big banks with hefty fines, due to their involvement in financing terrorism, large scale money laundering and other similar actions.

Your Executive Order imposing sanctions on seven chavistas suggests that those who associate and partake in the "illicit financial flows from public corruption in Venezuela" will also be targeted. As one of Venezuela's foremost researchers on corruption, let me stress upon the importance of targeting such people.

What keeps Nicolas Maduro's regime in power is not the might of its armed forces; is not the brutality meted out on innocents, or torture and assassination of students; is not its political cunning, nor its association with the communist Cuban handlers. But rather corruption. The freedom to use Venezuela's cash with absolute discretion, and without any form of accountability, that's what keeps chavismo in power.

If you were to disrupt that, by sanctioning the enablers, the facilitators of corruption, chavismo would tremble. For the U.S. financial system, which your EO aims to protect, continues to act as a gigantic laundromat, for nearly all involved in corruption in Venezuela. U.S. based banks, lawyers, lobbyists and businesses are employed as a matter of standard practice by the Boliburgeoisie.

It'll be difficult, even for you, to be able to impose meaningful sanctions on somebody like Diosdado Cabello. But you can very well hit his proxies, the financial operators that use the U.S. financial system to launder the proceeds of corruption. You could start with Roberto Rincón, based in Texas. He knows a thing or two about other OFAC-designated thugs, like Hugo Carvajal, a distinguished member of Diosdado's "Cartel de los Soles."

2.3.15

While investors and businesses were running for cover, multinationals were unable to repatriate profits, inflation and devaluation killed the Bolivar "Fuerte" (BsF) value, and the Venezuelan economy went to the dogs chavistas, a Boliburgeois banker, Juan Carlos Escotet, managed quite an extraordinary deal. No point denying it, so kudos are in order.

upon gaining control of distressed bank, set up a fire sale to recoup initial payment and then some.

It must be said, Mr Escotet managed quite the deal. Without putting a coin, he bought on some else's dime a bank several times larger than his BANESCO. He got a foothold in Europe, increased his net worth many times over, in real terms, and managed to dupe Spanish, European authorities, stakeholders and media long enough to get what he wanted.

Alek Boyd created Vcrisis.com and started blogging about Venezuela in Oct. 2002. Since, he has worked as an independent researcher, reporter, lobbyist, civil and political rights activist, and has experience in strategic and media consulting throughout Latin America. In 2006, Alek became the first blogger ever to shadow a presidential candidate in Venezuela. In 2009 he gained a MA (merits) in Spanish American Studies (King's College London). Alek can be contracted to do due diligence on individuals and companies in Venezuela and LatAm. Contact: @alekboyd, or alek dot boyd at gmail dot com.

Most of the investigations I've published in the last 10 years are related to individuals and companies with suspect connections to Hugo Chavez's regime, whose actions would've gone unnoticed otherwise. Exposing the $2-trillion dictator is no easy task, and so donations are always welcome.